Technology enhances productivity is a pretty solid statement to make in the business world. However, when you are a startup or small business, it can be difficult to justify allocating funds to hire an IT department.

Many small business may have an IT professional on call or someone in house to manage the day-to-day tactical issues but with the demanding needs of rapidly growing businesses, there is rarely adequate time being allocated for analysis, forecasting and planning.

For most small businesses, a vCIO (Chief Information Officer) is a viable alternative that can provide much needed strategic support to the internal IT department.

Our vCIO support services will collaborate with and advise executives of small and midsized organizations on ways to formulate strategic IT goals, plan IT budgets, analyze and restructure business processes and help facilitate technology changes.

SCN’s virtual technology support services will offer a broader view of operational efficiencies, providing clarity and alignment of business and technology goals.

Benefits of hiring a vCIO

Established industry standard practices for IT Management

Director/C-Level leadership for a fraction of the cost

IT staff efficiency and accountability

More meaningful IT meetings (what matters to the business)

No more IT budget surprises

Better understanding of your technology (from the business perspective)

More Technology vendor accountability

vCIO support is provided on a monthly or quarterly basis. We will help your organization by providing the following:

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Personnel Management

Job Descriptions – The creation of job descriptions based on ITIL functions, processes and roles. We will map these job descriptions to all IT Services tasks and skill-sets to make sure your personnel is accountable and evaluated properly and fairly.

Salaries – We will help you evaluate the salaries of your staff based on their skillset and what is expected of them. This is one of the things that can be done to keep the best staff and decrease turnover.

Goal Setting – We will help set realistic goals for the department and each staff member. All of these goals will be aligned with the organization’s goals, vision and mission.

Evaluations – We will help you set criteria to evaluate your IT staff and in turn your entire IT department.

Hiring

PreScreen Technical Interview – We will help you build questionnaires to pre-screen your candidates before you bring them in for a formal interview. We can also perform the pre-screening for you.

In Person Interview – You will have the option of having one of our team present when you conduct your interviews. We can conduct the interview for you and then give you feedback about the candidate.

Mentoring – We can mentor your IT staff by regularly meeting with them to go over their goals and challenges.

Managed Services Provider Management – We will manage the performance of your IT service provider to make sure they meet all business needs. We can do this efficiently because we are familiar with specific business workflows, your culture and your business goals. Managed Services companies are often equipped to provide technical services but not to give the type of direction that focuses on particular business units or even a service line. We will be the ones taking care of the relationship with the managed services provider so you can focus on what you do best.

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Vendor Management

We will review vendors on a quarterly basis to make sure they are performing according to Service Level Agreements. We will negotiate rates on your behalf or we will assist in the negotiations.

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Audits

When it’s all said and done, all design and implementation of strategy and tactics would go to waste if we don’t audit performance. Our service includes checking that procedures and policies are being followed. We will audit inventory, make mock help desk calls and check inventory and expenditures quarterly to make sure IT strategies and tactics are being implemented correctly.

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Management Systems

HelpDesk System Setup – A help desk system is important because it helps you document trends for help requests, system outages, projects and staff usage. We will help set up a system that enables you to keep track of all these trends and facilitates IT service delivery to your organization.

QA Services – We will review IT services and system performance on a monthly basis with your staff, managed services provider or whoever is in charge of the IT function in your organization. We will then compare this performance to your business goals to make sure your IT function is on track.

Report Writing – We will create template reports with your current tools or we will provide our own tool. We will teach your internal team how to use and create these reports so they are self-sufficient.

Report Analysis – we will analyze trends, track efficiences (lost time, possible lost revenue, expenses on salary) and report on what matters or should be relevant to the CEO.

Inventory – We will help implement an inventory system which will facilitate service provisioning and budgeting.

System Monitoring / Alerts – We will help set up a monitoring and alerting system that takes into consideration business system priorities and service level agreements.

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Strategy

Planning – Quarterly planning sessions with internal IT, Outsourced IT Management and C-level executives to make sure the IT function is meeting business goals.

Budgeting – Help internal team or create a yearly IT budget.

IT Policies – Design, create and implement IT policies that meet the requirements of the business. Get necessary approvals from business unit leaders and get C-level executive sign-off.

Vision / Guidance – Help form a vision for the department and design strategies and tactics to make sure everything we do focuses on said vision.